


Maternal Instinct

by Sub_Rosa



Category: Ranma 1/2
Genre: Family Drama, Family Feels, Gen, Gender Issues, Out of Character, Why Did I Write This?, Yet Another Ranma-chan Fanfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-15 00:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8034688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sub_Rosa/pseuds/Sub_Rosa
Summary: Nodoka Saotome is many things: wanna-be yamato nadeshiko, reluctant kaishakunin, and - depending on who you ask - perhaps neglectful.But she isn't stupid.





	1. Chapter 1

Ranma Saotome doesn’t even remember how _young_ he was. How young he was when he realized that he wasn’t normal.

Growing up, he ran with the quixotic quicksilver wind, he walked the roads of China and Japan with his father, Genma. Ranma trained every day in martial arts, each passing moment another new challenge from his father: “Everything is training,” the man always said sternly, summoning up a vestige of pretension that he couldn't live up to in real life. “Everything is training, and that means it’s on _you_ , you understand? Everything is training, and you’re going to get through it.”

Some of what compelled Ranma to obey his father was just the tradition of it all - all around him, the accepted attitude was that children must respect their parents, no matter what else. It was his duty as a son to carry on his father’s legacy. It was his duty (one day, in the future) to provide for his father, so far as he could.

But most of what compelled Ranma was cold and hard punishment, cold and hard reality. He was only a child when his father started stealing food from him. “Everything is training,” the man said. “If you can’t keep your food from me than you just have to grow stronger.”

Nothing more than token dissent was accepted, not really. At the end of the line, Genma’s actions and words were law, because some things were just impossible - Ranma might have lived in a world where powerful martial artists could outstrip the speed of sound and punch through concrete as easily as cutting through styrofoam and butter, but Ranma was still just a child and Genma was the adult. There was no way Ranma could match his father, not for years.

Ranma lost a lot of food, over those early years. And Genma became… well, _decadent_ might be a good way to put it. Alone on the road with his son, with absolute power over the boy, he became even more neglectful and slimy than he already was.

Ranma was seven or so when he was left alone in a restaurant. “Oops,” Genma said. “I forgot my wallet, let me run on home and grab it. Here, my son will stay behind, so you know I’m honest,” he said, before turning to Ranma.

“I’m not coming back for you,” he whispered. “Better get out of here on your own, boy.”

(Ranma had to knock one of the waiters out before they let him leave unattended.)

Ranma was ten years old when he was thrown to the cats - literally. Tied up in meat, thrown in a pit with starving cats, and left to fight them back. And it didn't work the first time, Ranma didn't spontaneously learn secret cat-based martial arts: so his father did it to him again. And again. And again.

Ranma was twelve years old when his father intentionally broke his bones in a spar, just to prove a point. He healed. 

And somewhere along the way, he realized that it just _wasn'_ _t normal_. Normal boys weren't raised on the road, without regular schooling or schedule or routine or a home to come back to. Normal boys weren't beaten and starved like this as a way of literally toughening them up.

But what could he do? He was trapped by his own indecision, because he wasn't even sure he was willing to turn on his father completely. Genma was a bastard, but he was still Ranma’s _father_ , and didn't that just hurt? Genma hurt Ranma, but Ranma learned so much in the process, and how could he turn against his father now? All the abuse was done for his own good, wasn’t it?

“What’s so goddamn special about all of this?” Ranma asked his father one late night, staying up and watching a campfire. “Why do ya wanna make me a ‘man among men' so damn badly?”

Genma snorted, pushing and pulling on the air with his breath. “The pride of being such a man should be it’s own reward, boy.”

But somewhere along the way, Ranma realized that he wasn't a man among men. 

Well, that wasn't exactly true. He _was_ a man among men - he remembered to be such a man in his every interaction with the world. But on the other hand, that was exactly the problem, because it was something always in his mind, looming and immensely important - it was a role he played. 

Was there even a difference, was there even a meaningful distinction? Ranma didn't have some deeper self to reveal. He didn’t know what he _could_ or _would_ be aside from a man among men. Any person he became would just be another role; and if _everything wa_ s a role to be played, then nothing was. 

Besides - the pride of being a man among men was it’s own reward. It was a challenge, and Ranma could never give a challenge anything less than his all.

* * *

Ranma is 16 years old when his simple life of training on the road comes to an end.

The decline of his traveling with Genma starts at Jusenkyo, the so-called Cursed Springs of China. It seems like all roads lead to Jusenkyo, in the end.

Bamboo peeks out from dozens of crystal-clear pools of water, untouched by time and the water cycle. The wooden poles emerging from the water give the place the same cast as a great bed of nails, every bamboo spur reaching up to impale someone.

Ranma and Genma balance upon the wood rods without a care in the world, ignoring the protests of the tour guide below. And that makes it worse, even - because what happens next is basically their own fault.

Genma falls into the Spring of Drowned Panda. Ranma falls into the Spring of Drowned Girl. And just like that, they’re cursed to flip-flop between bodies with the touch of water.

“This is _your_ fault,” Ranma gripes at her father, after she’s changed into a girl. Her black hair has given way to red hair, red hair that she has to squeeze the cursed water out of, and she scowls. “All your fault, old man! Ya  _knew_ this was going to happen, didn’t you?”

“No, I didn’t,” Genma says grudgingly. “But how do you think _I_ feel? I turn into a panda!”

“If ya didn’t know,” Ranma retorts, “then you’re just a damned fool. But I knew that already.”

_And_ , Ranma thinks but doesn’t dare to say, _at least you’re not a girl._

Because now that Ranma is half-man and half-woman, she’s in limbo. Halfway to being a man among men, and halfway to being… something else, nothing else. Not that she knows what else, exactly, but the mere thought of it scares the shit out of her.

The rug has been yanked out from under her and suddenly her expectations and place in life have been overturned; she's been handed a new face and a new body and a new place in life that she can't do anything to get rid of for good, a role she can be forced to assume at any time. She's been handed a new face, hers to use with just a little bit of cold water.

She’s never lost so much before, but she's never had this kind of choice before, either. Staring it in the eyes, it’s more gut-wrenching than uplifting, more scary and paralyzing than freeing.

“Give me that kettle,” she hisses, grabbing for Genma’s hot water and pouring it over herself - taking temporary respite from the curse as she becomes a he again. “We have to find a cure for this thing.”

“Well…” Genma trails off. “We _may_ have business back at home.”

“What?”

* * *

And with that, their training trip truly comes to a screeching halt, while Genma drags Ranma back to his old family friends, the Tendos. The trip comes to a halt when Genma tells Ranma that he’s being married off to one of the Tendo girls as a way to bring the Tendo and Saotome schools of martial arts together. 

It’s annoying, it’s deeply upsetting that Ranma is being used as a tool in this. But what the hell is he supposed to do? He has a duty to his father, the one who taught him the Anything Goes style of martial arts, the one who raised him.

It’s not all that bad, though. In the earliest moments of his stay at the Tendo household, he runs smack-dab into existential crisis, and maybe that’s a good thing.

“I’m Akane,” the youngest Tendo girl says to Ranma while she’s still in her girl-form, before she’s even explained the nature of her curse. “Do you want to be friends?”

And does she ever? Of course she wants to be friends, she hasn’t had a real friend since she met Ukyo and Ryoga on the road, and she hasn’t seen them since. So she folds like a house of cards and tries to make friends.

“I’m just glad you’re a girl,” Akane tells her, and it smarts just a bit. Because Ranma feels like she’s a liar. Ranma isn’t a girl, not really - she still thinks of herself as a man, because she has to be a man in order to think of herself as a strong man who can be proud and have self-esteem. And Ranma might see Akane as a tomboy, but if Akane is a tomboy, than so is Ranma, because Ranma literally grew up as a man, and still is half-man.

It’s nice making friends with Akane, even though it has to crumple like paper eventually. Eventually Ranma’s gender-bending curse is revealed, and looking at the sheer _hurt_ on Akane’s face, Ranma feels awful.

“I trusted you, and… and it was all based on a lie!” Akane hisses through her tears. And Ranma learns a valuable lesson that day:

No one can ever see her as agirl, not really, because eventually the truth will out. Jusenkyo doesn’t offer the chance to _be_ a girl, it just offers a seeming. Even now, all Ranma can do is be a man; even now, Ranma can still be a man.

And because Ranma is reeling away, running away from her curse, that’s okay. The pride of being his own man is its own reward.

* * *

One night, Ranma - in his male form - tries to sneak out of the Tendo household, to placate the confused wanderlust in his bones by staring down the roads of Furinkan.

“You’re just like Mom was, you know,” Kasumi, the eldest Tendo daughter, tells him, catching him where he stands on the roof. Pinning him down with her discerning gaze, and _understanding_. “She met Dad while she was traveling.”

Instead of dwelling on the maybes of the road, Ranma listens to Kasumi elucidating the could-have-beens of the past, sitting with her atop the shingles.

“Dad was on a training trip out in China…” Kasumi recounts wistfully. “Mom was just… traveling. Seeing the sights. I know she was… she never did settle down, ever, until she met Dad.”

“I’m sure she was a wonderful woman,” Ranma replies. Something in his chest shifts uncomfortably.

“Was it worth it?” Kasumi asks. Looking into her eyes, Ranma wonders if she’s asking him, or asking her mother by proxy. “Living on the road? What was that like?”

“If I knew, I would tell ya,” Ranma sighs. “It was worth it, I know that, but I dunno how to begin explaining it.”

The bitter night air pushes and pulls against them with the wind.

“For everything that I saw…” Ranma says slowly. “Some things never changed. After a few years, it was always the same. The people were always the same.”

It was always dojos and monasteries and the like. It was always Ranma and his father, never anyone else, not for long. Any human ties were severed soon after they were made.

“I’m not even sure I could explain,” Ranma eventually concludes. “I think it was worth it. Sometimes I still sorta wanna see the world, if I’m bein' honest. But… I never wanna travel like that again. I’m done with that, it’s over.”

“No more training trips?” Kasumi asks, looking at him oddly. Ranma’s lips quirk up and down.

“Aw, that’s not what I meant,” Ranma says. The night sky seems to have enchanted him; words seem to have utterly failed him, dying inside his throat because he doesn't even know what they are.

“I’m not sure I understand,” Kasumi shrugs. “But maybe that’s okay.”

“Maybe it is okay,” Ranma echoes.

His breath pushes and pulls on the night air, and at the end of it all, he doesn’t even care to spin out a more complex reply.

It’s okay.

* * *

Nodoka Saotome was barely into her twenties when she made the single worst decision of her entire life. 

That decision marrying Genma; that turned out to be a mediocre decision at best, but it was still hardly the worst. That decision wasn't having a child before she was ready to care for one; that was a fairly bad decision, but it was still far from the worst, and she could never bring herself to regret it.

The worst decision of her life was letting Genma leave and take her son with him.

“Nodoka, listen to me…” Genma said, bringing out the not-entirely-suave charisma that charmed her to begin with. “Our son _must_ become the heir to the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts.”

“I know that,” Nodoka said tearfully. “I knew this would happen when I married you, and when we had Ranma. But must you start this so soon?”

Genma gritted his teeth. “Nodoka! You have raised Ranma well, but the time has come for me to train him properly. You _have_ to put your maternal instinct aside, for the sake of Ranma’s future.”

And the sad thing was, it was almost easy to give Ranma to him. She was overwhelmed as a mother - she felt like she was drowning under it all. She _wanted_  to be a good mother, but she didn't know how. The opportunity to abdicate responsibility and give it to someone who she trusted was too tempting, and she wasn't a paragon of virtue. She was just as much a gutless coward as Genma was. She acted like she was virtuous and unyielding and honorable, but she yielded exactly when she was expected to yield.

“If you truly love your son,” Genma continued, “then you must allow me to train him as I see fit. Be patient, and I will show you that this is the right thing to do.”

“Okay,” Nodoka said, feeling as if she was wilting. And Genma beamed.

“Nodoka!” he crowed. “As proof of my dedication, I swear upon my honor: I will make Ranma the greatest martial artist of his generation, and he will return as a man among men! This I swear! And if I should fail, then we shall commit seppuku together!”

She watched Genma leave with Ranma slung over his shoulder, she watched Ranma reach a hand out to her and cry, she watched them disappear down the road. And it wasn’t until the next day when her anxieties came back to life in her breast. It wasn't until the next day when she wondered if she was going to see them again, it wasn't until the next day when she began to regret her decision to let them go.

She got post from them, occasionally. At first it was wordy and verbose, if rather… waffling and vague. But over time it trailed off, becoming less and less frequent, and becoming more and more sparse. Detailed letters were replaced with barely-informative postcards.

The last letter she got informed her that Genma and Ranma had departed for a place called Jusenkyo. And when she got no more mail for months thereafter, she feared the worst. She imagined their broken bodies in shallow graves, killed during their travels, and she cried.

She cried herself to sleep, night after night, and then she stopped crying because she had no more tears to shed.

She just grieved.

And then-

-she hears that Genma is back in Furinkan, at the Tendo household, and hope bursts into flame within her chest for the first time in a long time. Hope that she can see her son again.

And so it goes.


	2. Chapter 2

Ranma has been with the Tendos for more than a few months when he sees _it_. He sees it long after school has ended for the day, and after the sun has begun slipping down into the side of the sky, glowing red and misty with sleepy twilight.

It's nestled into a scrapbook that Kasumi left open on a side table in the middle of the house, in-between photos of Ranma fighting Tatewaki Kuno and photos of Akane managing to scrape into success at cooking. Ranma remembers both of those things very well - he remembers every little scuffle with that asshole, and he remembers every single time Akane manages to surprise him with something edible.

He kinda does treasure those times when Akane looks so happy and proud of herself, just a little. Not that he ever tells her, or anyone else, that, because it would be too damn  _embarrassing_.

What he doesn’t remember and _certainly_ doesn’t treasure, is the photo of him in his girl-form, in a dress. Not just a photo of him in a dress, but a photo of him in a modest dress, sitting outside and _smelling the flowers_ like a damn  _girl_.

“What the fuck?” He says, not bothering to filter his crass mouth. He clumsily retrieves the photo from the scrapbook, pulling it up to his eyes so he can take a closer look. It doesn’t even look doctored.

Hesitantly, he flips the photo over in his fingers, noting the information stamped into the back, the date marked down in black ink - Nabiki’s handwriting, that of the middle Tendo child.

He scowls, sitting up from the table and flipping the photo over again. Without thinking, his legs carry him to Nabiki’s room, and he throws open the door without even knocking.

“‘biks! What the hell is this?” He growls, watching Nabiki pull off her headphones and glare at him, a smirk curling across her lips as she takes note of the photograph he’s holding in white hands.

“That’ll be ten thousand yen if you want to know,” she drawls carelessly, kicking off of her bedspread and coming to stand in front of him.

“One thousand, _at best_ ,” he retorts. “This is obviously _your_ photo, however ya faked it, so don’t rip me off for it.”

Nabiki smirks. “Fine, one thousand,” she says, not even trying to haggle with him. Ranma _knows_ that Nabiki is an exploitative jerk, but she doesn’t always try to suck his wallet dry. Sometimes he thinks that’s her way of showing she cares about him.

Then he gets blackmailed into doing a modeling gig in his girl-form by her, and he realizes that no, she doesn’t quite care. 

“You’re wrong, though,” Nabiki corrects him after he’s paid her sum, infinitely smug. “I didn't fake this at all. I just took the picture.”

Ranma raises an eyebrow. “Right. Because I run around in girly little dresses.”

He doesn’t, in his boy-form or his girl-form.

Well, he totally does, in his girl-form, sometimes. But. He'd never wear a dress like this.

“Not normally, no,” Nabiki snickers, plucking the photo out of his fingers. “But I guess you don’t remember - there was this one time when you hit your head.” 

Ranma snorts. “Are ya serious? You’re saying I got clobbered and started dressing girly.” 

That’s not even how brain damage works - he has experience with head trauma and brain damage, after all. He knows this shit.

“Yup!” Nabiki says delightedly, popping the ‘p’ with great satisfaction. “You hit your head again later, and it sent you back to normal. I’m kinda surprised you never remembered that it happened, but it’s all the better for me, I guess.” 

“Better-?” Ranma splutters.

“Yeah,” Nabiki replies. “I made a _lot_ of money selling pics of you, you know.”

“Nabiki…” Ranma hisses, grabbing the photo back and crumpling it up. “That is _such_ bullshit, and you know it. I don’t-”

( _-want to be that kind of girl, brain damage or no_ )

“-do that kind of girly shit, brain damage or no.”

And he doesn’t, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t act like such a sissy, smelling the goddamn roses. Roses smell like _shit_ , anyways, as far as he’s concerned, and he _obviously_ doesn’t feel bitter about anything. No, he’s emotionally well adjusted, yes sir!

He takes a deep breath in and out, slowing down his speeding-up heart rate.

“And why did Kasumi grab this picture of yours, anyways?” Ranma hisses. “She’s not the type to make fun of me-”

“She wanted it because you were smiling,” Nabiki says, cutting him off.

His heart sinks slightly, and he stops gripping the ruin of the photograph. He looks down and unfolds it with his thumb.

He _is_ smiling in the photo, his girl-form’s nose hovering over the flowers.

He _never_ smiles like that in his girl-form.

(he never smiles like that in his boy-form, either)

“...oh,” he murmurs, the wind taken out of his sails. He's lost all momentum.

“Yeah,” Nabiki chuckles. “Believe it or not, it happened, and Kasumi wanted to remember that smile fondly, I guess.”

And that itches at Ranma, knowing that Kasumi made a memento of Ranma out of his right mind, but he’s not completely stupid. He knows… well, he doesn’t know. But he _thinks_ he understands, just a bit, the way that you can get invested in someone who doesn’t exist (someone who will never exist, no matter how much you might want them to). The way that you can get invested in a facet of a curse.

Kasumi isn’t the first one to have done it, but she’s obviously much sappier about it than anyone else. And he can’t fault that, no matter how much he might want to.

Stupid of him.

“Also,” Nabiki snickers, “you owe her for another copy of that photo you just ruined.”

Ranma sighs and digs out another handful of yen.

* * *

Sometimes, Ranma thinks of his mother.

He doesn’t remember her well, or really at all. Sometimes, he has dreams - running through gardens to help an older woman with planting flowers, sitting in her arms as she reads books he doesn’t understand, and the like. Stupid mother-son bonding activities. It’s probably just something he made up to make himself feel better, because there’s no way he can actually remember who his mother was.

No, his mother is probably dead. He knows it as surely as he can know anything - which isn’t very surely at all, when so much in his life lies in flux and the only things he can be sure of are intangible social ties. He can be more sure of his _engagements_ than of his _sex_ , and how messed up is that?

Never mind about that, though. His mother is probably dead, and was probably some awful woman to boot. A more lovely woman would never have ended up with a man like his father, Ranma always reasons, and the woman in question must have been _truly_ horrible for his father to be so unwilling to talk about her.

Genma hasn’t talked of Ranma’s mother once, after all, and that’s not for a lack of trying to broach the subject on Ranma’s part.

So Ranma is alone right now. Poor Ranma. He could just about cry himself a river, or not.

After all, he doesn’t need a river, because there’s already a river right next to him. A low-slung drainage canal dug into the earth, walled off by fences.

_“Everything is training, boy-”_

Ranma walks along the top of the thin metal fences, just like he's always been taught, his shitty shoes padding against the wire lattice.

He thinks back to the late Kimiko Tendo, the mother of the Tendo girls, and he can’t help but feel cheated on some level. Akane, Nabiki, Kasumi - they all at least have a grave to come back to. He doesn’t. He can’t lay flowers at some headstone, year after year, because he doesn’t even know where his mother is. There’s no damn  _closure_.

_“You’re just like Mom was, you know-”_

It itches a bit, just like the itchy feet that give him his wanderlust. And what the hell does he even think he's wandering for? Does he want to find a home? To see the wonders of the world? To find someone to love? To find someone who will love him? To find eternal happiness? To find the secret to life? Is he running away?

Well.

When he thinks of his mother, he just wants some closure, so that he can get on with going around in circles instead of worrying about something he'll never have.

He’s so spaced out that he doesn’t even notice the fence give way under his feet, dumping him into the drainage canal, into the freezing water that triggers his gender-bending curse. And it’s infinitely typical - life seeming to arrange itself into a perfect storm at every turn, so that he can be drenched in cold water and become a she. She’s used to it.

“Oh  _hell_ …” Ranma groans, getting up in the knee-deep trench. “Can’t a guy even _mope?_ Pfth. Peh.”

She leaps out of the canal with a burst of speed, landing at the brim where the fence fell over, and she comes to rest right next to a bewildered-looking woman, with dark auburn hair, brown eyes, and fairly formal wear. Like a surprisingly large number of women in the Nerima ward, she carries a katana with her.

“I hope I’m not being impolite…” the woman murmurs, staring at Ranma. “But weren’t you black-haired just a moment ago?”

Ranma freezes. “Er, it musta been a trick of the light,” she says, lying through her teeth. Dripping wet and quickly getting chilly, she's not really in the mood to explain her curse.

“Must have been,” the woman shrugs. “Or maybe I’m getting old. Either way, could you humor me, and tell me where I can find the Tendo household?”

Ranma freezes for the second time in as many minutes. “You wanna see the Tendos? I can show ya where they are, easy. I’m staying with them,” Ranma explains.

“Oh, are you?” the woman asks curiously. One of the corners of her mouth lilts up into a lopsided smile. “How fortuitous.”

“Come on,” Ranma says. “I guess I'm heading back to change my clothes anyways, so do ya wanna come with me? They’re just a block or two away.”

“I think,” the woman says, still smiling like the fucking Mona Lisa, “I would like nothing more.”


	3. Chapter 3

Sometimes, Ranma wonders if it would just be for the best to give up on curing himself of his curse, and give up on caring about it.

It’s not because he likes his curse, because he doesn’t. It’s too incongruous, it goes against the principle of who Ranma wants to be, and wants to want to be, and who he wants to want to want to be, ad infinitum. Even if he did like the curse, it wouldn’t be the reason why he considers giving up on a cure.

It’s just... the entropy of the thing. He lives in a world where cold water is more common than warm water, so it’s a constant uphill struggle just to be someone who he can consider a man. And even if he was able to get his hands on some Spring of Drowned Man water, there’s no guarantee that the curses wouldn’t mix together, leaving him _truly_ trapped in-between sexes.

It would just be such a fucking relief to stop being Sisyphus, and start getting on his life, such as he even has a life to begin with. He doesn’t have much of one, but he treasures it anyways.

But he can’t. He just can’t. He’s too invested in being who his father wants him to be.

And he knows his father doesn’t deserve that kind of loyalty, but he gives it anyways, in order to defend what his father has given him. Genma gave him something to be proud of.

And he knows his father is a liar. If he would use his son as a tool of duplicity, then everything else - all of his teachings of honor and masculinity - would be suspect as well. But Ranma doesn’t look too deeply into the possible lies, because he has to defend what his father has given him.

In truth, maybe it's less about loyalty and honoring his father, and more about defending himself from having a foundation pulled out from underneath him.

It’s dishonorable, framing this self-preservation as loyalty to his father, and Ranma knows it. But he doesn’t have anything else, save for his doubts. If he doesn’t have the prospect of being a man, then what the hell does he have? Being a man is one of the very few things he's ever thought he was good at. He keeps that cornerstone of masculinity close to his chest, even when all else fails. It makes him feel tall.

So when Ranma wakes up gasping and sick in the middle of the night, dreaming of fugues, he knows that something is wrong with him.

_“This isn’t you, Ranma!”_

The next morning comes after the nightmare and all Ranma can do is find Akane, bustling around in the kitchen and trying to be a cook again. He watches, resisting the urge to step in, because he knows that he’s just as bad at cooking as she is. A life on the road does not lend itself to delicacy.

“Butt out, Ranma, I’m kind of busy here,” Akane mumbles, the bags under her eyes weighed down by iron filings.

“It can’t wait, Akane, this is serious,” Ranma shoots back. And Akane turns down the heat on the stove, leaving the cereal flakes to simmer in milk. “Nabiki said some weird things a few days ago.”

“Nabiki _always_ says weird things, Ranma. There’s nothing serious about that,” Akane says, her eyes tracking the egg timer on the counter.

“She said that I hit my head on a rock and turned into a girly-girl. Did that really happen?”

Akane doesn’t say anything for several seconds, and the toast in the toaster begins to burn - not because it’s part of her plan, but because she’s honestly taken aback and neglecting her task.

“I think everyone but the perverts at school would rather forget that ever happened, Ranma,” she says bitterly.

“So it _did_ happen,” Ranma sighs, feeling certainty and finality settle over him. “Figures. And none of you ever told me about it?”

“Didn’t you just hear me?” Akane asks. “No one wants to remember it. Let alone explain that it happened to you, mister macho man.”

Ranma watches as Akane pulls out the fire extinguisher, leaning against the refrigerator.

“Was it really so bad?” Ranma says, feeling more torn than he expected to be. “I thought you wished that I had been a girl.”

“Very funny, Ranma,” Akane shoots back darkly. “You didn’t just become a girl, you became... someone else.”

“Oh, well, I’m touched to think you care about me,” Ranma mutters sarcastically.

“Shut it, or I’ll make you eat some of this,” Akane says.

He doesn’t need to be compelled to eat it, in the end. He’s irrational that way, when it comes to Akane.

* * *

The streets of Furinkan are flush with the heat of a faded sun, swollen with the warmth of a muggy twilight. The city - like the people therein - is beginning to slumber, letting out a few last gasps before it is dragged to sleep, and even these sounds are swallowed up by the asphalt.

Neither Nodoka nor the small red-haired girl escorting her to the Tendos know how to broach the silence between them - no small talk seeming worth the disruption of their comfortable quiet. Their feet pad against the roads, and Nodoka idly imagines how well Ranma knows that rhythm, pounding in time with a heartbeat.

Finally, a gate looms in the distance. The red-haired girl quickens her pace, running to the latch and throwing it open without fanfare. A sign of her own familiarity, perhaps, or of her own lack of decorum.

“Hey pops! I’m home, and I brought a guest!”

There’s a splash of water against flesh and wood, the sound of sliding doors opening and closing, a bustle of feet-

“Growf!”

And then a panda rips the girl off of her feet, dragging her into the home at blistering speed. It’s all poor, confused Nodoka can do to follow after, stepping through the open gate (which is still swinging in the wind).

“Gyah! What the hell-!? You-! Get off of me-!” The girl screams from the distance, her voice echoing through the house before going muffled.

A small throng - as small as any throng can be - loiters around the porch, examining Nodoka with not enough subtlety and too much curiosity. There’s nothing to do with a stranger other than introduce yourself, of course, so Nodoka loosens her posture slightly, doing her best to smile. “Hello! I’m Nodoka Saotome.”

“Welcome to our home,” Soun Tendo says carefully, already unknowingly navigating metaphorical minefields. “I am Soun Tendo, and these are my daughters. How can I help you tonight, Miss Saotome?”

_Right to business, then, eh?_

Nodoka smiles thinly, and the light of it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Hello. I normally don’t put any stock in gossip, but, well... I believe you once knew my poor husband, Genma Saotome? I heard a rumor that he and our son, Ranma, were staying here with you. Do you know anything about that?”

Akane shifts uncomfortably. Soun turns back to the door behind him, where the Panda looms imposingly, shaking it’s head at a breakneck pace.

“I’m afraid to say that while they have been living with us..." Soun fumbles with his words. “They… just went on a training trip! Yes, they went on a training trip, and they won’t return for a while yet.”

There’s a sound of struggling from down the hall. No-one pays attention to it, least of all Nodoka, because although the news is disappointing to her, it’s still the best she’s heard of her family in months.

The Tendo girls look at each other, at a loss for words, before Kasumi speaks up. “Ah... Miss Saotome... have you really been alone all this time, with Mister Saotome and Ranma on the road?”

“The way they talked about you, you might as well have been dead.” Nabiki says bluntly. Akane kicks her in the shin.

“Well, I suppose it’s true,” Nodoka admits, the memories practically spilling from her eyes. “Yes, I have been completely alone since Genma took Ranma away with him.”

And Nabiki, with more kindness than anyone honestly expected from her, manages to pry the story out of Nodoka in pieces, fits and spurts.

“Perhaps it was foolish of me to let Genma leave for so long...” Nodoka reflects. “But I married an honorable man, and he made a promise to me.”

The very idea of such a promise is irrational, she knows now - even if you hold to your oaths with all the force you can muster, there’s nothing binding reality and providence to play along with your agreement. But at the time, it seemed like such an aegis of protection, a guarantee that Ranma would return, strong and happy.

Again, there's the sound of a struggle from down the hall, and then the _twang_  of snapping ropes.

“Ha! I knew it, old man, you couldn’t hold me with this even if ya could tie a knot to save your damn life!”

The girl rushes back in, engaging the panda with every fiber of her being and knocking it to the floor with a breakneck kick.

And it’s all Nodoka can do not to laugh. The scene before her is hardly funny - not even to her dark comedic senses. She doesn’t like animal abuse, which the scene certainly seems to be. But it’s another way in which the younger red-haired woman reminds her of _herself_ , young and naive.

Nodoka had a pet, once upon a time, before... well, before. Nodoka was a tomboy, too, once upon a time, before she cleaned up her act. Ghosts of the past.

So she cracks another crooked smile. “You know, young lady, you probably shouldn’t mistreat your pet like that, and you shouldn’t be using such poor language, either.”

The girl turns her head up to face Nodoka, blushing furiously. “What!?”

Nabiki saves the girl in the nick of time though, not even asking for anything in return. “So, Auntie Saotome, you were saying something about a promise?”

“Yes, I suppose I was,” Nodoka sighs, and she looks almost embarassed. “You see... Genma told me before he left that if he failed to raise my son as a man among men by the time he returned, then he and Ranma would... commit ritual seppuku.”

The red haired girl seems to turn a dozen colors at once - white with fear, red with scandalized embarrassment, purple with rage, green with sickness - and then she stares down at the panda under her. It looks almost bashful.

“You!” she hisses, her voice catching sharply. Then she grabs it by the scruff of it’s neck and dragging it down the hall. The sound of a sliding door sounds out again.

Opening and closing.

“Is it something I said?” Nodoka asks.


	4. Chapter 4

“I don’t believe this.”

Ranma throws the panda she calls her father against the wall, her voice an infuriated whisper that rings out louder than any scream could manage. Genma  

“No, I _can’t believe_ this. I don’t _want_ to believe this. How could - what the hell is wrong with you, pops!?”

The panda at least has the grace to look vaguely ashamed. Ranma paces up and down, her body a pendulum in the side room where they’ve found themselves.

_It was the only way I could convince her to let us go on the training trip. She wanted an assurance that I would raise you properly._

Ranma rips the sign out of her father’s hands, tossing it to the side. It flies out the window, crashing through the glass. Neither of them pay attention to it.

“So this whole goddamn time, ya raised me as a man among men so you could satisfy mom. You satisfied mom so you could teach me martial arts the way you wanted.”

The panda nods, satisfied with the train of thought.

And Ranma stifles a scream. “This whole time, you said that I was learning martial arts so that I would be a man!"

From the outside, it suddenly seems so damn  _arbitrary._

Learn martial arts to be a man. Be a man to satisfy Ranma’s mother. Satisfy Ranma’s mother to learn martial arts. It’s circular, going nowhere, it just feels like a huge lie, this assembly of pretense which supports Ranma’s lifestyle. Ranma feels vaguely used and she doesn’t understand why.

The panda shrugs, not seeing the point of Ranma’s interrogation.

“And you! You always - you always tell me off whenever I let Akane push me around-! And you, all this time, you and Mom-! She has a katana to your damn neck! Our necks!”

Ranma has started hyperventilating somewhere along the way, gritting her teeth.

“You let me believe that Mom was dead this whole time!” Ranma spits. “You, you… you bastard!”

The panda gets up and walks away, shrugging off Ranma’s pointed remarks.

“Ya made me a man among men so that I could learn martial arts. Why the hell was my learning martial arts so important to you!? Was it just so I could marry in with the Tendos? To do what you couldn’t, for the school of Anything Goes!?”

The panda doesn’t respond with sign or with word. It doesn’t need to - Ranma understands.

She’s been made into a tool. Her whole life, she was taught to be a man as a point of personal pride, an end in itself. But now she understands it was all just a means to an end. It was all a lie, it was all a fraud, it feels too big to even wrap her head around.

And if Ranma even plays along with this nonsense, what does that make her? Is it the right thing to do, playing along for her duties to her parents? Is it the right thing to do, going along with what is expected of her from the world? Is it the wrong thing to do, marking her as an accessory to her own victimization?

How can she even call herself a victim? She’s not a victim of _anything_. She can’t actually be a victim, it’s monumentally impossible to be anything _but_ someone in control, just on the principle of the thing. And even if she _could_ be the victim, this situation doesn’t count as victimization. That’s what she tells herself.

She tells herself a lot of things.

But even though she doesn’t _know_ what this means - what _can_ it mean? - she still lashes out at the _implications_.

She catches up to the retreating panda, says - "Ya should have just married Soun yourself!" - and slugs him in the face. 

It’s not the first time that Ranma has engaged in violence with her father; far from it. She beats up her father every other day in a spar. She beats up her father whenever he physically slights her (which happens often; as soon as she was able, she beat him up every time he tried to steal her food, and a few more times for good measure).

It’s not the first time that Ranma has beaten someone up for an emotional slight; far from it. She lives in Furinkan, where every other martial artist is a chronically violent asshole with a talent for trying to make Ranma suffer.

But it’s the first time she’s beaten her father up for a purely _emotional_ hurt. Every other punch and kick had some veneer of physical pain behind it, some kind of retribution for physical neglect. Not this. This attack comes from some deeper place that she doesn’t look at.

She can barely even believe she’s done it by the time the panda punches back, knocking her into the kitchen, where she reaches out, grabbing at dishes and cooking ware to hurl it at her father.

It feels good, getting her feelings out with her fists.

And she hates that.

* * *

 

Nodoka is knee-deep in tissues, slugging back cup after cup of tea (“For the nerves,” Kasumi says sweetly) by the time that the red-haired girl returns, the panda trailing behind her and grumbling furiously. They're both more than a bit bruised up.

“The sink in the bathroom is busted,” she growls out bitterly. “No hot water.”

“Well…” Soun sighs, wiping sweat away from his forehead. “I believe a certain panda may have broken the water heater.”

“Of course he did,” the red haired girl growls. “Why wouldn’t he have? Stupid panda.”

She sits down at the table across from Nodoka with a _thump_ , staring almost longingly before turning away.

“Oh? What is the panda doing with the water heater?” Nodoka asks, cocking her head to the side and clearing away the last of her tears.

The red haired girl snorts. Indecision flickers across her face.

“...he’s very smart,” she whispers. “For a panda, that is. He would make a pretty stupid human.”

_Hey!_

“I can see that,” Nodoka says, looking at the sign the panda brandishes with the full force of righteous indignation. “I never knew that pandas could be so intelligent.”

“I suppose they can,” Soun says awkwardly, coaxing her away from the topic. She lets herself be led along, because she doesn’t know _what_ to think.

“What’s his name, young lady?” Nodoka asks of the red-haired girl. “Actually, for that matter, what’s your name?”

The red-haired girl laughs bitterly, a private joke no-one else understands. “He doesn’t need a name. He knows when we’re talking to him.”

“...I see.” Nodoka says, although she doesn’t see at all. “And… you? What’s your name?”

“I’m Ran…” something vulnerable flickers in her eyes again. “Ranko. I’m just a family friend, visiting the Tendos for now.”

“Hm.”

Nodoka looks down at the last of the scalding hot tea in her cup, poured from the kettle on the table. Ranko is staring at the kettle, now, not at her.

The final dregs of Nodoka’s tea go down her throat. 

“Look at me, whining about a son I thought was dead just a week ago,” she whispers. "This is the best news I've heard in months, really."

Ranko flinches visibly.

“I… I should go,” Nodoka says shakily. But-

“Stay!”

“Stay!”

Ranko and Akane both turn to face each other, embarrassed by their unanimous declaration. Akane is the first to shrug it off.

“Listen, Ranma will be back in just a few days,” Akane says, almost too smoothly. “You can stay with us in the meantime, if you'd like.”

Nabiki does her best to suppress a shit-eating grin while Soun chokes on his own cup of tea.

“I know I would be happy to have you here,” Kasumi says.

And Ranko seems to struggle with herself for several seconds.

“Ranma tells me everything. I can tell you about him, if you want?”

With an incentive like that, how can Nodoka refuse?


	5. Chapter 5

Akane Tendo _hates_ boys, just as a general rule. She hates them more than she ever knew she _was_ able to hate - and upon reflection, that makes her sound so angry, doesn't it? She's angry, but it's true, because she was young once, and didn’t even grasp ‘hate’ as an feeling she would ever hold to her heart.

(“I want to use my martial arts be a peacemaker when I grow up!” Akane had once declared naively to her mother, before her mother had passed away and before Akane had learned how impractical that was in the real world.)

It starts with the little things - the way that so many boys let their gaze linger on her body; the way that they simultaneously view her as an exalted unattainable token and as base flesh to be acted upon. The more liberal part of Akane feels bad for judging them - what right does she have to regulate their eyes and their thoughts? - but the rest of Akane just feels judged and scrutinized as an object. In science class, as she dissects a frog with her lab partner Hikaru, she feels ineffably like he’s putting her under the microscope, dissecting _her_.

And then the bigger things happen - Kuno happens, with thebehavior and attitudes of an outright _stalker_ , following her around at all hours and serenading her whenever he gets a chance. She tries to talk him out of it, but her words don’t sink in.

To boot, it’s disgusting, the way Kuno airs his emotions for her like dirty laundry in the wind - metaphorically exposed and naked, indecent to the core. Such intimate emotions embarrass Akane, on some level, especially seeing as Kuno is so unwilling to listen to _her_ emotions. So she stays away from emotions and the contemplation of such, to maintain a composure that she doesn’t strictly have.

And then Kuno makes his proclamation - that no one in her school can date her without first defeating her in combat - and she explodes in anger.

Most of the boys at school don’t start engaging her in combat. Most of them are smart enough to know that beating her up would hardly endear her to them. Most of the rest are moral enough to know that they want no part in this ritual. Most of the rest are smart enough to know that they’re not strong enough to beat Akane in combat. At the end, there’s only a few left over, to play along with Kuno’s megalomania and attack Akane.

But to a scared young girl (who refuses to admit that she’s scared or young), getting physically attacked (if not molested mid-combat) day in and day out? ‘A few’ seems like ‘most’ if not ‘all’ of the boys. And so she learns to hate boys in general. It’s only reasonable, to her view.

And she hates Kuno most of all. Where does he get off, making declarations about who is ‘allowed’ to date her, as if it’s not her choice? Where does he get off?

Where do _they_ get off?

At first, she tries to just _talk_ to them. Tell them that she’s not interested. But it doesn’t work. They don’t fucking _listen_. So - in a world where every reasonable authority figure fails to intervene in the face of violence - she learns to _use_ violence for herself. She forgets about her words - in the face of a boy, all that she can see that works to get stuff into their skull is a fist.

Words don’t work with boys. They never work with boys.

And hey, it’s an excuse to practice her martial arts, even when her father doesn’t want to teach her properly. Win-win. Talking things out sucks anyways. Emotions are embarrassing.

Sometimes, Akane wonders whatever happened to her childhood dream of being a peacemaker. When she was very young, she thought she would never abandon her dreams. When she was of middling childhood age, she imagined that one day she would have to ‘grow up’ and make a simple but conscious choice to put childhood dreams away. Yet no decision had ever been made. Rather, Akane simply learned over time that her interest in childish things and dreams had disappeared when she wasn’t looking - or she learned over time that her dreams had never really existed at all.

They were ‘dreams’ for a reason. Naive. Words never work, she knows that now. Sometimes, all that matters is violence. And she hates it, but what can she do?

* * *

Akane Tendo hates boys, just as a general rule, but she loves Ranma Saotome. She doesn’t _want_ to love him - he’s a boy, and a terrible boy at that. But somehow, she loves him anyways. Not necessarily as a lover, not necessarily in a romantic sense, but she loves him nonetheless. Somewhere along the way, his rough-cut spirit has slotted into place within the uneasy peace of the Tendo household, and he’s become as much a part of her life as anyone else.

Not to imply that there aren’t speed-bumps along the way.

It starts with her father, really. The man sits in the dining room, drinking tea like he’s not dropping bombs on her head, talking about Ranma’s arrival at their home. “Saotome and I made a pact long ago that we would unite the two branches of our martial arts styles via the marriage of our children,” he says.

And Akane is enraged. For a moment, she looks at Soun and sees Kuno, another man who wants to tell her what to do and who to fall in love with. It pisses her off. She feels fucking _dirtied_.

But then, miracle of miracles, Ranma seems to be a girl when she arrives at their home. And Akane’s heart reaches out, because she’s lonely, and she wants a friend.

“So you were really gone for all those years on a _training trip?_ ” she asks the red-head curiously. “I practice martial arts too, do you want to spar?”

“I dunno,” Ranma says. “I’m not sure I want to fight a girl-” she clams up and her fleeting smile disappears from her face.

“You sure?” Akane asks, missing the thrust of Ranma’s argument.

And Ranma smirks. “Aw, what the hell, I guess it will be fun.”

They spar. Ranma wins, hands down. And Akane laughs - she doesn’t really want to be strong for the sake of strength itself, she just wants to be strong enough to beat any boys that come her way.

Ranma laughs too, because Akane’s good humor is infectious, and then Akane speaks: “I’m just glad you’re a girl,” she says.

Ranma stops laughing, adopting the look of someone deep in thought (or deeply sad). Akane can’t figure out why until she walks on a black-haired boy sitting in the bath.

 _Spring of Drowned Girl_ , Ranma and Genma explain. The words echo in her mind like tolling bells, and she sees Ranma’s red-haired form, and she feels sick.

“Hey,” Soun says to Ranma, while Akane turns vaguely green. “You’re still half-man, so your problem isn’t so bad. Look at my daughters, you can take your pick-”

Akane just feels sick. She’d thought that Ranma was a girl like her, she’d made a friend, and then been let down. And now Ranma is making the same choices for her that every other boy tries to make.

Boys just want to control her. It’s all they ever do.

“I’ll never marry you, you pervert!” Akane says. “I trusted you, and… and it was all based on a lie!”

“I’m no pervert!” Ranma splutters.

“You saw me when we were in the bath!” Akane shoots back.

“And you saw me too!” Ranma retorts.

“It’s different for me!” Akane says. “I’m a girl!”

Ranma seems almost offended. “Well, it’s different for me, too! I can see my own body any time I look!”

And that offends Akane more than anything else. Ranma’s body - it’s not really his. If the curse of the springs comes from what drowns therein, then Ranma’s girl-form is probably some other girl’s body, a body that drowned a thousand years ago. And now Ranma has stolen it, wearing it about the house like it's not a walking insult to the dead. Akane looks at Ranma, and sees another man who thinks he has the right to control a woman’s body.

_Hikaru, looking at Akane - Akane, under the microscope -_

So Akane grabs the table and upends it on Ranma’s head. 

Ranma is a boy, after all, isn’t he? Words never work on boys. If words worked on boys then Akane wouldn’t need to fight boys off day after day.

So she beats Ranma up, and she doesn’t really feel guilty about it. Not at first.

But she comes to change her mind, anyways. And most of it is sympathy that shifts her priorities.

She watches Kuno turn away from her and turn his attentions to Ranma - she sees Ranma deal with his own violent, possessive suitors - and she realizes that she’s not alone. She _sympathizes_ over time, and that’s enough to make her feel a bit sorry. Just a bit.

She watches Ranma and Nabiki... well, that's not her story to tell.

She watches Ranma as months go by and she doesn’t have much reason to watch him anymore, and she realizes that maybe Ranma isn’t so bad. It builds up over time.

But still. He’s a boy. Words never work on boys. So she lets it fester rather than letting it air.

* * *

And when Akane looks at Ranma? Looks at Nodoka? Akane can't help but notice that they look alike.

Maybe her worst assumptions - of Ranma as a defiler of a dead girl’s visage - were wrong all along. Maybe Ranma’s girl-form is just what he would have looked like if he was born as a girl. Maybe maybe maybe.

Lots of things are uncertain, up in the air. All Akane really knows is that Ranma has a chance to reconnect with his mother. Akane has spent countless nights crying her eyes out, wishing for just _one more chance_ to see her mother, and never gotten one.

She’s not going to let this chance slip away from Ranma, no matter how conflicted she feels about him. She wouldn't let that happen even if she hated Ranma. So she speaks, as Nodoka sits up and makes to leave.

“Stay!”

And Nodoka stays. It almost makes Akane feel like she’s done something _right_.


	6. Chapter 6

“You keep looking at that tea, Ranko, but you know it’s not going to serve itself.”

Ranma flinches at her mother’s words, caught in the act of staring at the kettle yet again. It takes a conscious effort to tear her eyes away from the hot water that could explain everything and look her mother in the eye.

Doesn’t she want to explain things? How can she face her mother so dishonestly? Shouldn’t she accept her duty to family honor, and come clean? Accept judgement for failing to meet the conditions of a vow she hadn’t even really made?

The answer comes easily, surprising in it’s brutal honesty: _not really_. She _doesn’t_ want to come clean and face honor. Honor hasn’t gotten her much in life, perhaps because her conception of honor has been so warped. Warped by an arbitrary promise made for the sake of an almost political marriage between Tendo and Saotome.

With her roots laid out in front of her, Ranma can’t deny the fact that her whole life has made her at most an extension of her father and perhaps her mother - and that’s nothing unusual, in this era and place where so many children take after their parent’s vocations, but Ranma still remembers the itchy wanderlust inside of her, driving her along to something that isn't what other people expect from her. She still has a bit of teenage rebellion inside of her, stoking the fire of blind defiance.

So no, she doesn’t want to play along for honor. Not right now. Now, she just wants to connect with a mother she barely understands, and if it has to be through the role of ‘Ranko,’ to make things simple, then that’s what she’ll do.

“I dunno if I actually want any hot tea,” Ranma says, her mouth smiling of it’s own accord despite the lies she spins. “Gives me blisters, you see?”

“Well, I can’t say I _do_ see,” Nodoka says. “But that’s a good thing, I’d hate to watch you burn yourself up.”

_Like that time I nearly gave myself third-degree burns while I was setting the campfire for Dad?_

“Heh,” Ranma tries for a laugh, but her heart isn’t in it. “I suppose not.”

She stares into her empty teacup, stolen from Soun’s place at the table when the older man had left. It’s just Ranma, Nodoka, and the panda now, sitting in the corner and watching the reunion with piercing eyes.

Ranma runs her finger around and over the rim of the cup, dancing around the truth. “What do ya wanna know? Really?”

“Everything,” Nodoka says without blinking.

“I suppose you do,” Ranma sighs. “I dunno if you’ll be _happy_ to hear what I have to say though…”

“Oh no.” Ranma can practically _see_ Nodoka’s heart plummet. “Has something bad happened to Ranma?”

_Yes? No? I don’t know?_

“Nothing permanent,” Ranma says, turning to look out the window because she can’t bear to look at Nodoka’s heartbreak. Jusenkyo was permanent, but she can’t bear to expose that, either. So she lies. “But I dunno if… if he had a very good time training with… his father. I dunno if you’d be happy to hear about what P… what Genma did.”

Nodoka doesn’t respond, and so the silence becomes more oppressive than Nodoka’s visage ever could be. Ranma has to turn around to see what her mother has to say.

“I’m not the same woman I was back when I let my husband go for years on end,” Nodoka says sadly, looking Ranma in the eyes as surely as she stares uncomfortable truths down. “I hoped for the best, I think… but I’m too anxious as a person not to have prepared for the worst. Don’t hold back just because it casts my son or my husband in an unfavorable light.”

The panda snorts in indignation, rolling it’s eyes and rolling over. Ranma looks at it, at the father who won’t meet her eyes and open up.

“I guess it’s not the things Ranma could tell you that would say the most,” Ranma says, struggling to explain herself from an outside perspective. “It’s the things he did.”

Who has an outside perspective on Ranma? The Tendos. What would the Tendos say about Ranma?

It’s _hard_ to look at yourself from the outside.

“I remember…” Ranma says softly. “It guess it was only a few months into Ranma’s stay here, when Akane caught Ranma hidin' food away. I still remember the things she said… she chewed… chewed him out for being ‘greedy.’”

Nodoka’s grip tightens on the long package she has carried with her at all times. A more innocent ~~girl~~ ~~boy~~  person wouldn’t have known what it was, but Ranma still remembers that one time when Genma tried to get a samurai to teach her.

Anything Goes means anything goes, after all.

“And how did he learn such a bad habit?” Nodoka asks grimly.

Ranma snorts. “I remember… Kasumi called my… his habit a 'survival mechanism', after talking to Ranma. Then Kasumi chewed out Akane for assuming, and chewed out Genma for being a bastard. Dunno if it stuck though.”

“Please tell me you’re not saying what I think you’re saying,” Nodoka says faintly. She looks about ready to faint, too.

“I guess that hiding food away isn’t something normal people do,” Ranma admits. It hurts. She wants to flinch. “But normal people have never had to worry about people stealing their food on a daily basis.”

There’s silence in the room. The panda rolls over again, lazily, and Ranma can see it rolling its eyes.

“Why…” Nodoka seethes. “Why would this happen?”

_You let it happen._

“I think it was some kind of messed up motivational system,” Ranma sighs. “To help Ranma _train_.”

 _Where did Pops get the idea from?_ Ranma wonders. _Was he just hungry, one day? Or was that how_ he _learned, too?_

No answers are forthcoming.

“I should have known…” Nodoka groans, dropping her face into her hands. “I swear to God, when he gets back, I’m going to… I don’t even know. I'll kill him”

“You couldn't have known,” Ranma says, although the words taste like ash and dust coming out of her mouth.

He was her _husband_.

How could she _not_ have known? Ranma almost wants to grab Nodoka and scream at her, for letting Ranma go on that trip with Genma. She was a _child_. What was Nodoka thinking?

Ranma also almost wants to thank Nodoka, for sending Ranma out on the training trip that made her who she is.

“That’s nice of you to say,” Nodoka says bitterly. “But it’s not true, is it? God, I’m a terrible mother…”

This isn’t an acceptable thing for Ranma’s mother to think, though. Ranma wants… wants to do something for the broken woman in front of her, even while Genma does nothing, wearing a panda’s skin in some screwed-up self-preservation scheme.

And besides, Ranma still has her pride, even if she doesn’t know what to do with it.

“No you aren’t,” Ranma says, and of this she feel sure. “Ranma is… he became the martial artist his father wanted him to be. Even if his father wasn’t very honorable, Ranma always tried to do better. And I think… he’s happy.”

Goddamnit, it feels awkward for Ranma to wax lyrical about her good qualities like she’s a separate person. But Ranma _is_ happy. Isn’t she?

Nodoka barely looks any less miserable, though, and that just makes Ranma feels worse.

_This was a terrible idea._

It hits her then, harder than ever before, the sheer _monumental scale_ of the role she’s been given to live up to. Is there any way that Ranma could ever make Genma truly happy with her? Is there any way that Ranma could ever make Nodoka happy with her?

It's one thing to be rebellious, but the consequences of failing to be a man are staring Ranma in the face, now. A heartbroken mother who might not ever see her child properly ever again.

 _Ranma_ is the failure.

“Ranko!”

Distantly, Ranma realizes that she’s shattered the teacup in her hand, porcelain dust leaking from her closed fist. It doesn’t even hurt, and not in the ‘you’re in shock’ way.

Damn martial arts bullshit.

Nodoka bustles over, dropping her katana to the floor and curling Ranma’s hand open. It’s bloodless, save for four reddish crescent gouges in her palm. The places where her own fingernails have dug in.

“Oops,” Ranma mutters, her head still in the clouds. “That’s my bad.”

Nodoka still looks panicked, but she manages to school her scared features into normalcy. “You could have hurt yourself, young lady! You need to control your strength!”

“It was an accident?” Ranma says meekly.

“I’ll say!” Nodoka shakes her head. “Who taught you martial arts, young lady?”

“Pops, of course,” Ranma says without thinking. Genma sits straight up and glares at her.

“Oh?” Nodoka’s face darkens. “Is _everyone_ teaching their children martial arts, these days? Maybe I should give your father a piece of my mind.”

“No!” Ranma yelps, while Nodoka drags her out of the room, over to a sink, running her hand under the (cold) water. “Don’t! He’s, uh, a deadbeat, anyways! I haven’t seen him in a while.”

“Tch. And where’s your mother in all of this?” Nodoka asks, her mouth drawn up into a thin line.

Ranma looks away, doing her best not to laugh (or cry) at Nodoka’s interrogation. “I never knew my mother, okay?”

“And is this _living situation_ why you’re staying with the Tendos?” Nodoka asks.

“...I guess you could say that,” Ranma lies.

The water shuts off. Nodoka looks troubled.

“I’m sorry, Ranko,” she says, and she actually seems to mean it. “I seem to have gotten away from myself. It was rude of me to question you like that.”

“You’re not the only one who got away from herself,” Ranma whispers. A stab of shame rips through her; for what, she can’t pinpoint.

“...let’s get that hand looked at?” Nodoka asks, gesturing to the curved welts that look about ready to bleed out all over Ranma’s hand.

“...yeah.”


	7. Chapter 7

_It is the end for Ranma Saotome. There is no next saga. No continuation. No escape._  

_He kneels in the open fields of the world, yearning to run free, but trapped by his own honor. He's so hyper-aware of his own form that his body seems paradoxically draped over his skin; he's wearing the kind of white robe you might be buried in._

_It is just him, his father, his mother, and the blades of honor in their respective hands. Nodoka looks close to tears._

_“I’m sorry, Ranma.”_

_“Don’t be sorry,” Ranma says. “Me and Pops brought this on ourselves. It’s not your fault.”_

_There is nothing to be said. The tanto in Ranma’s palm seems to swallow up the whole of the blue sky within the silvery reflective steel._

_“To be honest, there’s probably something more formal I could be saying,” Ranma chuckles, his humor undercutting the gravity of the scene. “But I never was one for true honor. I have no honor. Never did.”_

_Genma plunges the blade in his hand into his stomach, and with no time left, Ranma follows suit, working his sword like a saw._

_The pain feels cold. Ranma closes his eyes, despairing for what his mother would be forced to do in just a moment. No mother ever wants to have to kill their child._

_He hears the swing of a katana, off to Ranma’s side (_ Genma _), and then another swing. Ranma feels his entire body below the neck go numb, and then he goes tumbling down through the air._

_He feels it all._

_He opens his eyes in shock, dismayed by his continued consciousness, and to his horror, his decapitated and dismembered body lays splayed on the ground before his very gaze._

_Red locks of hair dance in his field of vision. Distantly, Ranma realizes that somewhere along the way, she has entered her girl-form._

_Nodoka walks over, grabbing Ranma’s body by the shoulder and hoisting it up like a perverse mannequin. The corpse is dressed in the beautiful sundress she once wore to smell the roses, clashing brilliantly with the splashes of blood gushing from it’s neck and the slashed belly which oozes guts and viscera._

_And for all of Nodoka’s despair, her gaze somehow grows scrutinizing. Picking the body apart with her very eyes._

_“Oh, Ranko…” she sighs, speaking to the gorey stump of the neck as if there's anyone there to listen. “You never did understand, did you? Why you had to die as well as them?”_

_And then she leans closer in, her face splattered with claret. “Ranma might have been a failure of a man, but you were a failure, too.”_

* * *

 

-and finally, Ranma wakes up, to the tweeting of birds on the windowsill and the sun peeking through the blinds, pounding off of the polished floor and reflecting into her eyes.

Her heart is hammering so hard in her chest that she can’t even hear Kasumi’s calls to breakfast from downstairs, hammering so hard that she can’t hear her desperate gasps for breath.

“It was a dream,” she whispers, feeling sympathetic pain spiking in and out of her guts. “Just a dream.”

Rolling over in bed, she comes face to face with Kasumi in the doorframe. “Ranma. It’s breakfast time! If you don’t come down right now, then I’m pretty sure Genma is going to eat it all.”

Kasumi’s feet pad away, leaving Ranma alone with her thoughts.

It’s all Ranma can do to crawl out of her bed, get on with her morning routine, and make her way down into the kitchen. Her hand no longer vaguely smarts from destroying that teacup the night before, so she undoes the bandages as she walks into the dining room and deposits them in the trash can where they belong.

“Ah, hello Ranko!” Nodoka says, supervising Akane as the youngest Tendo daughter finishes off with one concoction or another. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes,” Ranma lies. “Like a log.”

Nodoka smiles surprisingly fondly. “That’s good,” she says, before looking at Ranma again and doing a double take. “Wait. Don’t tell me you’re wearing the same clothes as last night?”

Ranma checks herself carefully. “No? I put on new clothes this morning.”

The fact that she’s wearing exactly the same _style_ of hyper-masculine clothing goes unsaid.

Nodoka shakes her head, only half joking, and turns to Kasumi. “What are you doing with this girl?”

Kasumi lifts her hand to her mouth, hiding a smirk. “‘Ranko’ is… quite incorrigible."

“Hey!” Ranma laughs. “I dunno what you’re talking about, but I take offence anyways.”

The panda sitting down at the table, with it’s face in a bowl, snuffles and makes a rather pleased sound.

“Your _clothes_ , dear,” Nodoka says, smiling serenely. “Is there a reason that you’re dressing like a man?”

 _Shit_ , Ranma thinks. Her first thought is just to say “Because I’m a guy!” but obviously that’s not going to fly right now. And her mind scrabbles about, desperate for an answer.

It’s amazing the kinds of truths that come up when pretext is ripped away.

“Because wearing girl’s clothes would get me… get me too much attention.”

Attention of a kind that she doesn’t want.

“I don’t understand,” Nodoka says, looking at Ranma curiously. And Ranma squirms, feeling like she’s being examined by Nabiki. “I’m pretty sure that you would get attention anyways, dear.”

Ranma stares at the wall over Nodoka’s shoulder. “I don’t follow.”

Akane looks at Ranma with something like honest sympathy, and that freaks her out more than anything. But Nodoka cuts through that on the spot, glancing askance at Kasumi with an expression of disbelief.

“You’re a beautiful young lady, aren’t you? If you dress like a man, people are just going to think you’re a lesbian.”

Something in Ranma’s heart _twists_ , aching and pleasant and terrifying and wrong all at once.

“As if,” Ranma mutters. “That… really doesn’t happen, to be honest. And I’m _not_ beautiful.”

Nodoka is hardly the first person to call her ‘beautiful,’ not by a long shot. Before her was Kuno. Happosai. Even Nabiki, in her mercenary evaluating way.

And all of them make Ranma’s skin fucking crawl - but especially Nabiki. Ranma had only been under the Tendo’s roof for a few weeks when Nabiki stomped up to her (at the time, _him_ ) and started chewing him out for his ‘eating them out of house and home'. 

“Hey!” he had said. “Blame Pops for that, not me! I’m not a total slob!”

“The money doesn’t lie, Ranma,” Nabiki had said. “We literally don’t have enough money to pay all of the bills, thanks to you and your panda of a father. You don’t want us to have to kick you out just to survive, do you?” 

That had scared the shit out of Ranma. He didn’t want to go back to the road, not like that, not in such a ‘dishonorable’ way. He didn’t want to be a burden. And he was scared enough to overlook all of Nabiki’s expenses, far in excess of what he and his father brought to the table.

“What do you need me to do?” Ranma had said. He had the integrity to follow through, even if it hurt.

And it _had_ hurt.

“I’m going to need you to dunk yourself in cold water, and then put _this_ on, and make a sexy face, if you don’t mind?”

It wasn’t so bad at first, and it was easy to justify - Ranma hadn’t had the credentials to get a job, and Genma wouldn’t have ever done anything productive, so the only choice Ranma had was to sell his body as a model. _Her_ body. Sitting underneath Nabiki’s camera, Ranma had felt pinned down, taken apart, flayed, examined in excruciating detail to extract the maximum amount of lascivity. Wearing modest girl’s clothes that Nabiki had been convinced would be more titillating than any amount of immodest garb.

And there was no describing the sheer _guilt_ that Ranma had felt. For a moment, dolled up, she could have almost enjoyed it all - she made a pretty girl to look at, and it was almost nice to pretend to be someone else, someone with an easier life than she actually had.

Almost, almost, almost. Nothing is sadder than that the totality of that word, really. Because it always falls short.

There was no way for Ranma to pretend that she had been anything other than _used_. And somehow, under Nabiki’s expensive camera flashes, Ranma felt worse than ever before. How stupid and weak was she, that a little dress could make her feel more despairing than anything her father had done on the road?

Being beautiful shouldn’t have been any worse than starving because your father stole all of your food, or cringing with every step because of your bruises. And maybe it wasn’t implicitly bad; Ranma had taken far stranger detours into female fashion and femininity, during her many challenges, games, battles, and dares, and somehow managed to enjoy herself along the way.

But with the way Nabiki had looked at Ranma… it couldn’t have been anything _but_ an awful experience.

And it had only gotten worse from there. Courtesy of Happosai and his stupid, stupid moxibustion, leaving Ranma weaker than a baby. There was no way that Ranma, man among men, would ever let himself (or herself) get so weak. It meant vulnerability.

So Ranma had devised a plan to beat Happosai, et cetera, and get his strength back. Had devised a plan to turn Happosai’s perversion against himself.

The night before the battle, Ranma had all but crept into Nabiki’s room, begging her to snap photos of Ranma in _lingerie_ of all things. Ostensibly as bait for Happosai.

“Oh, Ranma,” Nabiki had laughed. “We should do this again sometime.”

It had been the blackest moment of her life so far. Too weak to practice martial arts. Having given up on masculinity, even temporarily. Having lowered herself _again_ to being Nabiki’s toy model. Living like that and staring in the mirror, knowing that she might not get her strong and masculine persona back the next day, Ranma had never felt more horrible.

Was it any surprise that Ranma couldn’t find any upsides in femininity? When, even after being forced into it by circumstance, there was no redeeming value in the experience?

“No,” Ranma says to Nodoka, shaking her head, bitterness leaking into her voice. “I don’t really want to be beautiful anyways.”

* * *

 

Nodoka Saotome is many things.

She’s old. She feels it in her bones. She’s a failure of a mother, or so she thinks. She’s spent her life learning how to be the best and most proper woman for a husband, the most proper mother and homemaker for a son, only to fall short when her family had left her behind. Her entire cultivated self is useless.

But the one thing she _isn’t_ is stupid.

“No,” Ranko says to her, looking sad and hurt and withdrawn from what should have been a compliment. “I don’t really want to be beautiful anyways.”

And her heart aches with remembered, sympathetic pain, for a girl who’s obviously been hurt. Nodoka is familiar with that. With hiding from the world by being a tomboy. She was once completely the same.

Is Nodoka coming to conclusions? Well, yes. Of course she is. But she has to come to _some_ conclusion about this sad girl, before she takes shelter in ignorance. Nodoka just wants to pick up this girl and give her a hug. She wants to do something for this girl who reminds her so much of her younger self. It’s almost like looking at her own past - or at a daughter who doesn’t exist.

And, well, all of Nodoka’s pent-up maternal instincts have to go somewhere.

“That’s okay, dear,” she says, her voice hitching in her throat against her will. “That’s okay.”

And she drops the topic like it had never even existed.

“On a completely different note,” she says, her expression brightening, “how do you know Ranma, Ranko? That was something you never told me last night.”

Ranko obviously notices the clumsy changed subject, but looks grateful anyway. “Well, I guess we’re pretty close.”

“Oh?” Nodoka asks. “Do you _like_ him?”

Ranko looks like she could laugh, or puke, or cry; but then she starts to giggle, and she laughs, and laughs, and laughs.


	8. Chapter 8

“Aw man…”

Is it bad that Ranma doesn’t remember the last time she laughed so hard?

Nodoka looks faintly amused, in spite of everything on her mind, and Ranma collects herself, looking at her mother’s face. If ever there is a person Ranma wants to justify herself to, it will probably be this woman - if only because Nodoka is such an unknown. The unknown is ripe for romanticizing in a way that the known isn’t. It is easy to fantasize and hope about the unknown, compared to the intangibly disappointing nature of what Ranma knows and meets every day. 

“I’m sorry about that, uh… Miss Saotome,” Ranma says. “Ya caught me off-guard.”

“Hm,” Nodoka shrugs. “I wouldn’t be apologizing for laughing, dear.”

Ranma seats herself down at the table, shuffling her feet about. “Um. Yeah." 

She scratches the back of her head awkwardly, waiting for food to be served as if she isn't hungry at all. Nodoka is holding a cup of tea, pulled from… somewhere. Sipping, sipping, sipping it down in the manner of a woman of too much propriety and grace. 

“I’m sorry if the question was too personal,” Nodoka says, moving out of the kitchen and sitting down in front of Ranma. “I only wanted to get to know you better.”

“Because you wanna get to know Ranma better?” Ranma asks. Nodoka smiles bitterly. 

“Well of course. You seem to know him rather well. But... would you believe me if I said that wasn’t the only reason?” She says, biting her lip. And Ranma feels something detonate in her chest, the dull _thwack-thump_ of firmament pillars giving way and falling through her bottomless feet.

“I guess I would,” Ranma says. “But I ain't mad if you care more about Ranma than me.”

Nodoka shakes her head. “I wonder if I really do care about Ranma that much.”

Every head in the kitchen and the dining room turns to face her. Surprise colors Kasumi’s face.

“That’s not true,” Ranma says, out in the cold. “I mean… you must care about him! Right?”

“I don’t have much right to start caring _now_ ,” Nodoka mutters. She raises her teacup to her mouth, sipping again until there’s no tea left and then some.

“Better late than never,” Ranma insists. She feels vaguely ill, now. Her mother isn’t supposed to be someone that needs reassurance. But then, parents aren’t perfect. “You wouldn’t have come if ya didn’t care. You _do_ care, you’re just worried that you can’t make it up to Ranma.”

Nodoka’s face twists, smirking-smiling-frowning, while she folds up her arms. “You’re too insightful, Ranko.”

“Am I?” Ranma asks. If she was being insightful, well… she hadn’t actually noticed, which kind of ruins the whole point of being insightful, doesn’t it? “I dunno about that.”

“Insightful enough, at any rate.”

Akane pretends that Nodoka and Ranma aren’t staring stupidly at each other, carting in heavy plates of food from the kitchen. A surprisingly consummate actor, one who probably learned from Nabiki.

Slowly, the rest of the cast and crew of the household leak in to the table. Not that Ranma and Nodoka particularly notice or care.

“Enough about Ranma, for now,” Nodoka says. “I just want to know one thing: is he coming home any time soon?”

 _That depends,_ Ranma wants to ask, _on how willing you are to force me into seppuku._

“Soon, I guess,” Ranma says, not even lying, because even now she can boil some water any time she likes. Or fix the water heater. Knowing how to fix a water heater sounds like an important life skill for a Jusenkyo victim. She should get on that ASAP.

She should also figure out how to panda-proof the water heater, too, because Genma is simultaneously the cleverest and stupidest person in the room at any given time.

“Yeah, they’ll be back soon,” Ranma declares. “I know for sure that Ranma will be thrilled to see you. I dunno about Genma, though.”

“Growf!”

“Shut up, Mister Panda.”

Nodoka laughs. “That’s good to know,” she says, before looking away bashfully. “Now, tell me if I’m being too pushy or intrusive, but really, I want to get to know you.”

“Eh?” Ranma wonders. “But… why?”

“Because you seem like a nice young woman.” Nodoka says. “Because you remind me of myself, when I was younger, and I guess I’m a sucker for that. And that’s aside from your relationship with Ranma, of course.”

_Because you remind me of myself._

Ranma feels faint and flushed, all of a sudden she feels… happy? It’s… nice. It’s nice to feel close to her mother in that way… even if it’s a lie, because ‘Ranko’ is a complete fabrication from whole cloth.

She’s never known her mother, and now she knows that they’re alike on some level. That’s unsettling… and lovely. Blushy and warm.

“I dunno what there is to say about me,” Ranma says. What is there to say? Transplanted from her life as ‘Ranma’ into a false role as ‘Ranko,’ there’s nothing inside or underneath to reveal. “I guess I’m close to Ranma because we’re so alike. We both live and breathe martial arts… we both do it for our family.”

Nodoka looks at Ranma… scrutinizing, looking for something.

“Your father wants you to be a martial artist?”

“He wants me to be the best,” Ranma shrugs. “I have a hard time taking that seriously, sometimes, with everythin' he does wrong, but martial arts are what I’m good at.”

Nodoka takes a breath. “When I was your age,” she says, “I lived and breathed swordplay.”

Ranma eyes the packaged katana Nodoka carries with her everywhere she goes, and takes a bite to eat, talking with her mouth full. “Somehow I’m not surprised.”

Nabiki snickers through her own thorough mouthful of breakfast.

“No, I don’t exactly hide it, do I?” Nodoka laughs. “At first, I did it for my mother. She always had high expectations of me, and she wanted me to follow in her footsteps. She was a master at traditional kendo, and just about every kind of swordsmanship, on top of that. She wanted me to be the very best at what she did, too.”

Ranma swallows.

“At first?”

“At first,” Nodoka confirms. “I had a friend, back then, too. Let’s call her Sakura, for simplicity’s sake. I used to complain to her all of the time, about the _burdens_ that had been placed upon me. And she was in the same place, with a parent who wanted a savant. We commiserated like old women at a retirement home.”

Kasumi obligingly refills Nodoka’s teacup.

“Things changed, though, I think. I eventually started to enjoy swordplay for my own sake. I started practicing without being prompted, I poured my life and soul into it and gave it all of my passion.”

“Do ya still do all of that?” Ranma asks curiously. “Is that why you cart that sword around all of the time?”

“No,” Nodoka says. “I carry the sword with because it was my mother’s. And because this is the best way I know how not to lose it. But that’s a story for another time.

“No, I eventually let up on the swordplay because it was exhausting.”

“Exhausting?” Ranma frowns.

“Yes. The fact of the matter was… I just wasn’t good enough. I had talent, but everyone else had that, too. It was nothing special. So I had to make a decision. It was one of those watershed moments of my life - would I try even harder, practice harder, throw more of myself into my sword skills? Or would I accept falling short, and take solace in other parts of my life?”

Ranma bites her cheek. “I think I can guess what you chose.”

“It’s no secret,” Nodoka shrugs. “Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I had chosen to keep trying to be better. But instead I decided to accept what I could do as being ‘good enough,’ and maybe that was for the better or for the worse. It is what it is.”

“...and what do ya think I should do?” Ranma asks. “No offence, but you’re probably trying to send a message here, right?”

“What I’m trying to say,” Nodoka says, “is the exact same thing I would say to Ranma, no matter how condescending, unsubtle, and patronizing I might come off as in the process. I’m trying to say that there’s always a choice. And you should choose to do what makes you happy.”

Over in the corner, the panda snorts, glancing aside at Ranma. Ranma ignores him.

The problem is, if Ranma isn't actually happy right now, at this place in her life, then Ranma doesn’t know what makes her happy, after all. She knows _who_ makes her happy… but not _what_.

The who will have to do.


	9. Chapter 9

Ranma tries to make breakfast into a subdued affair, after that, eating without passing comment. The food is actually quite good, probably thanks to Nodoka’s attention on Akane while she was cooking.

Unfortunately, Ranma seems doomed to fail in that regard, as Nodoka continues making inquiries into that which is best left alone for the time being.

“So, which one of you three young woman is Ranma’s fiancee?”

Akane does a spit-take at Nodoka’s blunt question, spraying water all over Kasumi’s face and clothes. Nabiki raises a single immaculate eyebrow, while Kasumi begins wiping herself up without complaint and Ranma wilts in her seat.

“That would be Akane over here,” Nabiki says, surprisingly ready to spill all. Akane glances from side to side, her face pale with mortification.

“Uh, yeah, that’s me!” Akane chuckles weakly.

“I have a few questions, really,” Nodoka says. “I hope you’ll forgive me for asking them at all. But first of all… has Ranma grown up to be a man among men?”

Everyone at the table tenses up, while Akane coughs politely into one hand, glaring daggers at Ranma all the while.

“Oh yes, of course he has,” she says, with a snide edge that Nodoka doesn’t miss. “He’s become strong, and handsome, and for all I might sympathize with him, he’s still an asshole. Just like every other man.”

Nabiki whistles, over the top and dramatic. “Gosh, sis, that's no way to talk about your lover behind their back.”

Ranma glares right back at Akane, and then Nabiki. Akane winks at her, though, with the eye that Nodoka can’t see, and so Ranma can hardly stay mad at her for too long.

Because Ranma is so _weak-_

“I think I need a change of clothes,” Kasumi says, scooting back from the table and standing up. “If you’ll excuse me…”

“Sorry, sis!” Akane calls at the retreating figure of her eldest sibling, before turning back to Nodoka. “So, yeah, he’s become a man among men. Why do you want to know?”

“Because I want a picture of his life,” Nodoka replies, her hands in her lap. “I want to know how I’m going to have to face him and what I’m going to have to apologize for if, if... when I meet him again. And for what you’ve given me, all of you, I can’t thank you enough.”

She’s somber as she stares down into her breakfast, but pulls up a veneer of false brightness, continuing on like nothing is wrong.

“What does Ranma like to do in his spare time?”

“Martial arts,” Ranma says through the last mouthful of her food, on practiced reflex.

“Oh, I’m not surprised by that, Ranko,” Nodoka says. “But I meant _aside_ from martial arts.”

Shit, what does Ranma do aside from martial arts?

“Does fighting over romance count?” Ranma asks. “I mean, I - he spends a lot of time fighting with people who want to get with Akane. Or with his other fiancees.”

“That’s just more martial arts,” Akane chides, as Kasumi walks back in in clean clothes (not a dress, just shorts and a shirt), her bare feet padding against the ground.

“How about cross-dressing? He seems to be a fan of that.” Nabiki asks rhetorically, and now Ranma is the one nearly choking on her drink.

Nodoka, though, just smiles sadly. “What an _interesting_ life my son must lead.”

“Y-yeah, interesting,” Ranma splutters. “Exactly what I was thinking…”

Nodoka shifts, and the katana by her side clicks in its case.

“I suppose I have two more questions,” Nodoka mutters.

“Oh?” Akane asks, shooting Nabiki a death glare.

“First of all, what 'other fiancees'?” Nodoka asks carefully, her face darkening.

“Well there’s Shampoo,” Ranma says, cocking her head to the side, missing the upset in Nodoka’s voice. “I, er, Ranma beat her up once and she took that as a declaration of love.”

“That’s not exactly what happened, ‘Ranko,’” Akane sighs.

“I’m sticking to the short version here, okay? So there’s Shampoo, for one, who is bound by her her own laws to marry Ranma. Then there’s Ukyo. Uh, Genma can try to pretty it up but I’m pretty sure he only engaged Ranma to her so that he could steal her dowry.”

Nodoka’s nostrils flare, the picture of a snorting bull.

“I’m going to kill him.”

“Join the club,” Nabiki says boredly.

“No, I’m going to _kill_ him!” she shrieks. “What does he think he’s doing!? I should take his head off-!”

Ranma, understandably, scuttles away from the sight of the enraged woman.

“And you! Akane!”

“Me!?” Akane whimpers, as Nodoka visibly takes an effort to calm herself, breathing in and out to the point of hyperventilation.

“Are you happy in your relationship with Ranma? Is Ranma happy with you?”

And Akane… freezes. She glances around the table, from her father Soun, to Ranma, to Nodoka, multiple times over. Opens and closes her mouth like a fish.

“I, I, it’s not my place to say,” she says weakly, twiddling her thumbs.

“I’m not asking about what you’re supposed to say,” Nodoka replies. “I’m asking about how you actually feel.”

It doesn’t take a genius to predict what comes next.

“I… that’s none of your business!” Akane grits out, cherry-red with infuriation and humiliation, and gets up from the table to stomp away. “How can you put me on the spot like that!?” she shrieks.

In the distance, a door slams shut. And with that, the atmosphere is shattered. Soun gets up from the table as well, moving on with his daily routine.

“Don’t worry about her,” Kasumi says consolingly to Nodoka. “She’s like that with everyone.”

Nodoka stands up, torn up. “I’m sorry. I get the impression that I haven’t been a very good guest.”

“No!” Ranma interjects. “It’s not like that! I get it, you wanna figure out if Ranma is happy.”

“That was the plan,” Nodoka says, while glancing down. “I didn’t expect his fiancee to be quite like that. Or to be one of three.”

Ranma, perhaps wisely, chooses not to comment on everyone else who wants to get into her pants.

“But either way, I’m sure I’ve overstayed my welcome,” Nodoka says decisively, before turning to Ranma. “Can I trust you to deliver my apologies to Akane, Ranko?”

“Of course.”

Nodoka practically glows with appreciation. “Thank you, dear. Do you know when Ranma is coming back?”

“No clue,” Ranma lies, casting her gaze to the side with all the subtlety of a child who can’t look their mother in the eye. “It could be any day, now, or it could be weeks.”

“Mmm,” Nodoka muses. “Well, I suppose if you’ll have me, I’ll have to check in every so often.” 

“Ya don’t have to come all the way out here,” Ranma says, perking up. “When Ranma gets back, I’ll tell him to go to your place.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” Nodoka says dismissively, waving a hand. “Coming out here isn’t so bad. You’re all lovely girls.”

“I’m not-” Ranma cuts herself off, swallowing down the full retort.

(Nodoka wouldn’t _ever_ say that if she knew who Ranma really was, so the compliment doesn’t matter anyways, it's built on quicksand. It's a lie.)

“Nonsense, you’re a nice young lady. The only one here who _isn’t_ a nice young lady is Soun.”

And with that, with one last private laugh, Ranma’s mother steps out, saying goodbye to Soun on the way.

And from there, in the absence of an obvious crisis, with irritating _feelings_ that need to be ignored, there’s only one thing for Ranma to do.

* * *

 

“What the hell were you thinking, Nabiki?”

Nabiki’s bedroom is rather neat and clutter-free, perfectly organized to the point of compulsiveness on the mercenary girl’s part. Of course, Ranma has seen the insides of the drawers, seen everything under the bed and in the closet, where things are all in disarray.

“I’m afraid I don’t really know what you mean, Ranma,” Nabiki scowls.

“You know exactly what I mean!” Ranma stomps her foot rather petulantly, like a wounded child.

“No, you’re going to have to enlighten me,” Nabiki replies. Ranma wants to pull her own hair out. Maybe pull Nabiki’s hair out too.

“Why did ya have to accuse me of crossdressing? That wasn’t cool!”

“I didn’t accuse you of anything,” Nabiki replies. “I just told the truth, like I’m supposed to.”

“Yeah, but Mom can’t know the truth!” Ranma yells, without realizing that she’s even yelling. There’s a wrenching in her throat like she’s about to cry.

“Do you _really_ think your mom is going to execute you?” Nabiki asks drolly. “Really?”

“Because I have  _such good luck_ when it comes to this kind of thing!? You really think I can trust her!?"

Nabiki sighs. “Look, Ranma, I’m going to make this simple.”

 _Well, gee, how generous of you._  

“I don’t like you that much. You’re not a completely terrible person or anything, you’re just not someone I asked for in my life. That’s all there is about it,” Nabiki says, steepling her fingers where she sits in her chair.

_Join the fucking club._

“I'm gonna guess there’s a ‘but’ coming on.”

“But just because I don’t care about you, that doesn’t mean I don’t care about your mother,” Nabiki says with a glower.

Ranma scratches the side of her head. “Why would you care about her?”

“If you can’t figure that out, then you’re even dumber than you look,” Nabiki whispers. “Do you think that you’re the only one with mommy issues, genius?”

Ranma winces, suddenly feeling like the world’s biggest idiot.

“If you leave her hanging- if she dies, not knowing where she stood with you-” Nabiki takes a deep breath, steadying herself. “Then I swear to god, you’re going in the grave with her.”

Nabiki _trembles_ now, and looks away from Ranma, speaking clearly as if she isn’t on the verge of tears. Sympathy for the devil coils up in the redhead’s breast, but she’s hardly going to give.

“I don’t-” Ranma chokes. “I can’t _trust_ her - how can _you_ of all people trust her!? She fucking, she fucked up! And I’m supposed to trust she won’t do it again!?”

The silence, the vacuum is actually painful. Nothing new.

“So you’d rather interact with her as a stranger. Do you think that she’s going to make fewer mistakes with you if you’re a stranger, Ranma?”

“It’s not like that,” Ranma admits. “It’s just… it’s just lower risk, okay? I can’t take that risk.”

Nabiki snorts, wiping a tear away. “That’s not like you, Ranma.”

“Hell if I care,” Ranma sighs, steeling herself against the wall behind her.

Nabiki’s gaze, calmed down now, disassembles everything in her sight, taking it all apart into bits and pieces.

“You have issues, Ranma. I guess I can’t hope for things to up and simply fall into place, can I?"

“I do not have issues.” Ranma folds her arms up in defiance.

“Yes you do,” Nabiki sighs. “You’re a cross-dressing wannabe woman with crippling overspecialization and all the emotional intelligence of a five year old.”

“I do not wanna be a woman!” Ranma protests. “You think I like this damn curse? I hate it! I hate being a girl!”

“No you don’t. You don’t hate being a girl,” Nabiki says, getting up from her chair and patting Ranma on the cheek, infuriatingly patronizing. “I’m not even sure you hate the _idea_ of being a girl. You just hate everyone else.”

And with that, she walks over to the door of her room, preparing to leave.

“What the hell are you playing at?” Ranma asks. “What, where the hell do ya get off? You tell me that you don’t care about me, and use me, and then you stand on your high horse and tell me who you think I am?”

Nabiki just shrugs.

“You’re in too deep with us. No way Akane’s going to let you go by this point, so I suppose I’m going to have to learn to live with you, and I suggest you clean your act up.”

She opens the door-

-and lets it swing shut.

And then Ranma is alone.

* * *

 

Nodoka is two and a half blocks from her house when it starts to rain; and across the street from her, a black-haired boy turns into a black-skinned pig under the downpour. It’s all she can do not to stare at the sight, even as she bundles herself in her clothes as if to stave off the cold and the wet.

‘Interesting times,’ indeed.


End file.
